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Friday, May 20, 2011

That Time I Saw a Crow Use a Car

I used to work at a retail store in the South Sound Center, in Lacey, Washington. During lunch, I would cross Sleater-Kinney and go to Fred Meyer for lunch. I was concentrating on the service deli.

Waiting at the crosswalk, I saw something that I thought it was a leaf being blown across the street by a light wind, flitting between car tires in the busy traffic. But it wasn't a leaf. It was a little brown mouse. I was appalled to watch this mouse (we'll call him Arnold the mouse) try to cross four lanes thick with cars. I knew he was going to get squashed, and I couldn't tear my eyes away.

And then it happened. Exactly what I expected to happen.* A crow swooped down out of nowhere. It grabbed Arnold the mouse in its feet, lifted him off of the ground, and dropped him in front of the driver's side tire of a passing car.

WHAT

It's the kind of situation that makes you feel lucky just to be there. Steve Irwin never saw anything like that. I've heard of crows being able to use tools, but I didn't know that a car was one of them.* The crow earned this delicious* dead mouse, nicely tenderized, without even breaking a sweat.